Adding homemade flair to your outsourced affair

Main menu

Post navigation

Moderate-Effort Rainbow Cake

Lean on commercial cake mix, food coloring, and a double oven (if available) to somewhat speed creation of this groovy, guaranteed crowd-pleaser. This one was for my daughter’s rainbow-themed 5th birthday party at a kids’ dance studio, but it would be perfect for a pride event or other colorful occasion.

6 layers of the rainbow cake = ROY G BV (no Indigo)

My first exposure to the legendary rainbow cake came two years ago via Martha Stewart. As is often the case, I just did not have the patience, energy, or specialized equipment to make this cake from scratch. Instead, I cobbled it together from packaged vanilla cake mixes and food coloring, and still it was a PROJECT. The cake required three boxes of mix, some careful eyeballing to divide the batter (no food scale here), and a double oven working overtime. Today, when I Googled the cake, I was tickled to discover that our friends in big food have devised their own Betty Crocker semi-shortcut recipe. I haven’t tried this exact method myself, but if you’re like me and don’t mind special-occasion trans fats, go for it.

For the outside of the cake, I did my usual hack job with marshmallow fluff buttercream frosting. Although not shown in the picture of the intact cake (above), but slightly visible on the cut version, I attempted to make clouds around the base of the cake with packaged cotton candy. It looked pretty good at first, but the fluffiness flattened quickly.

Still, the cake was a huge hit with the 20 kindergarteners at Noalee’s party, not only because of the enduring pleasure of a surprise inside, but also because each kid gets a MASSIVE slice no matter how thin you try to cut it. It’s only fair to give each kid a taste of each color, even if they all taste exactly the same.